MARY. Do you know, Widgy, I don't think you're at all improved since you fell in for that fortune, by a legacy you never expected. When you lived in Fuller's Rents you used to walk out with me on a Sunday. You never walk with me at all now. WID. Walking's vulgar, my dear. MARY. And you sometimes used to take me at half-price to the theatres. WID. Theatres is low, my dear. MARY. And you remember how we used to go together to Greenwich, with a paper of ham sandwiches in my basket, and sit under the trees in the park, and talk, and laugh--law! how we used to laugh to be sure!--and then you used to talk of love and constancy and connubial felicitude in a little back parlour, and a heap of beautiful things. WID. (_Aside._) A heap of rubbish. MARY. And you know, Widgy, dear, when we enter that happy state---- WID. What state do you allude to, Miss White? MARY. The marriage state, of course. WID. Oh, indeed. Ah! MARY. You don't forget, I hope, that I have your promissory note on the back of twenty-nine unpaid washing bills to make me your lawful wife. (_Produces several papers._) There they are--and there's the last of them. (_Reads._) "Six months after date I promise to marry Miss Mary White." There, sir, you're due next Monday. WID. Am I! Then I'm afraid I sha'n't be prepared to take myself up. I'll let myself be protested. MARY. No, you sha'n't; you've been protested often enough. I can't be put off any longer, and understand me, Mr. Widgetts, I _won't_ neither. WID. (_Aside._) There's a savage hymeneal look in her eye that makes me shiver in my Alberts. I must soothe her a little or I shall have a scene. Why, Mary, my dear, now don't be angry, you know it's one of my jokes. MARY. Well, you'd better not try any more of them, for I don't like them. No woman does. WID. No, of course, no woman does. Ha, ha, ha! Quite proper too, my dear. MARY. Well, now that matter's settled, I'll go and collect your soiled things, for it's getting late. WID. Do so, Mary; you'll find them in my room as usual. (_Sits at table, L. C._) I'll make out the list as you call them out. (_Mary White enters room, R., and Widgetts prepares to write._) She's resolved to make me her victim and I don't know how to get rid of her. I'd give---- MARY. (_Inside._) Four shirts. WID. (_Writes._) Four shirts. She's a perfect treasure at shirt buttons; but what is shirt buttons to a bosom that beats for another. MARY. (_Inside._) One false front. WID. (_Writes._) One false front. She'd make a comfortable little wife if she only had---- MARY. (_Inside._) A pair of white trousers. WID. (_Writes._) A pair of white trousers. Ah! I wore those ducks at the Casino last Wednesday, and Ma'amselle Cheri Bounce observed, while I was handing her a glass of champagne---- Ecod, 'tis well I recollected it--I've forgotten to order champagne for my supper. I must run over to the tavern myself and tell them to send some. [_Snatches up his hat and exit, L._